Replay, scoreboard

There’s one crazy moment in the middle — darn, almost right in the middle — of regulation to talk about, but the other crazy moments are mostly saves.

Tyler Beskorowany made a ton of them. Shake your head at a few of them. Chris Langkow passing up a shot in the slot, feeding Scooter Vaughan at the left post, Beskorowany appearing out of nowhere? A few others where he got across to rob guys like Ryan Walters (pro-debuting, tied for the game high in shots with Scott Mayfield with five) or John Persson?

“We played a good 65-minute hockey game,” Joe Finley said. “Obviously it was not good enough to get it done.”

“I think we did some good things (defensively),” Poulin said. “They had only 20-something shots, shut them down, you know. We had some shot on goals,” though he thought they could’ve had some more presence in front of the net.

“That’s one of the best teams in the league, and we held them to one goal,” Finley said.

More or less. Kevin Poulin (still waiting on baby, BTW) tried to knock down a bouncing puck, slowly backed back into the net, and had Jason Jaffray toss the loose puck off his skate and… well, said the officials, in. Replay was unavailable (supposedly the WWE displaced that camera and it wasn’t restored in time). They stuck by their guns: 1-1.

“When I turned around, it was sliding toward the post,” Poulin said. “I never saw it in the net.”

Scott Pellerin was disappointed that the officials were eventually adamant about the call despite being a distance away, not putting much stock in the goal judge’s opinion that it didn’t cross the line.

Still, there were 30 minutes left in regulation and, it turned out another five minutes beyond that in which Bridgeport could’ve scored.

The one they got (I’ll give him credit for being in good position; Adam Brace laughed and went with “pretty lucky”) was on a power play, pretty crisp, and then a good bounce off the end boards leaves Beskorowany with no chance.

But that was it.

…..

It’s been, Brace said, a “very interesting first year pro, for sure,” going through three organizations. He’s had a nice first week, though, here. “I’m just trying to find a place I can finally establish myself and make an impact,” he said. “I’m hoping this is it.”

Walters wanted to get in the flow a bit early, maybe a check or something. He wound up getting open for five shots, a few of them on power plays. “The young guys did a really good job, Walters in particular,” Pellerin said. “We put them in some situations, some quality ice time; they made some smart plays with the puck. The power play moved it around well.” There was a power play at the end of the second where Beskorowany made about six saves, a few of them insane; Walters remembered one (he went with “unbelievable”) in particular on him. A nice start, anyway.

(If I didn’t call Beskorowany “Berehowsky” at any point, I’m calling it a win. If I did, apologies. It just stuck in my head.)

Andrey Pedan remains out with that upper-body injury from last weekend (which I’m still thinking is arm-related, from his reactions then, not related to his earlier injury).

In Chicago Rosemont 12 years ago, I looked at the twin runways to the dressing rooms through the same tunnel at Rosemont Horizon Allstate Arena and thought, you know, if someone really wanted to fight down here, a strip of concrete ain’t stopping ‘em*. Took 12 years, but there ya go.

Tomorrow soon after noon we’ll know for sure who’s coming to Bridgeport next weekend for the NCAA men’s hockey regionals. It looks like Union (because hey, if Union plays, it comes here, darn it) and Quinnipiac, which’ll be a change. Jason Moy of USCHO expects Providence and Vermont to come here also, with the Catamounts a tweak to the bracket to keep them closer to home; Mike McMahon of CHN thinks the NCAA sticks with the math and goes with Providence and North Dakota. Could be worse; the Vermont thing would be slightly more fun with the Mike Paliotta angle. ESPN put out its TV sked a few days ago.